AUS Press: Death knell looms for southern bell frog

[Herp News]

AUSTRALIAN BROADCASTING CORPORATION 28 September 09 Death knell looms for southern bell frog (Sarah Clarke)
A species of frog is fighting for survival as water dries up in the lower Murray-Darling Basin wetlands in south-western New South Wales.
Although some rain has fallen in the north of the river system, the lower end is still as dry as a bone in places, and the wetlands area is the hardest hit.
As the wetlands dry up, the animals, birds and plants that live there are disappearing.
Skye Wassens from Charles Sturt University is studying the threatened southern bell frog, a large species, typically bright emerald green, with irregular black and bronze spotting on its back.
Dr Wassens spends a lot of her time wading through what is left of the wetlands at Yanga National Park. She says every year the volume of water entering the system drops dramatically and large areas of habitat have been lost as the vast wetlands become scattered ponds.
"All the elements at the moment are starting to fail and it's just critical we get water just to hold these systems over during this dry period," she said.
Part of her research involves doing a visual and audio count in search of tadpoles and adult frogs, noting how many calls she can hear, and their location.
But as habitats dry up, the number of frogs continues to diminish, and some populations have disappeared altogether.
"In 2000 you'd walk along and they'd just be hopping along in front of you, really in their hundreds, and we'd collect hundreds in a night," Dr Wassens said.
"Now we're lucky to collect 100 over a four-month survey period. So they've become very rare. Maybe you're looking at 20 in a wetland the size of this one."
As the wetlands dry, the southern bell frog is being exposed to more and more predators.
Local graziers around the Murrumbidgee floodplains have played a major role in trying to rescue the frog.
Steve Blore and two of his neighbours have redesigned their dams and waterholes in an effort to give the frog a better chance.
"Probably what it has done is made us more aware of the bigger landscape," he said.
"If you'd come here five years ago and said 'southern bell frogs' or whatever ... they're insignificant, what are they? We couldn't care less about them. Now as you've seen in the kitchen there, there is a photo of a southern bell frog hanging on the wall."
Their efforts have had some success but it is too late for those frogs that have already disappeared.
A lack of annual flooding has effectively isolated key populations leaving them vulnerable to more local extinctions.
Even so, Dr Wassens remains full of hope.
"They just need a chance to recruit properly free of carp," she said.
"They need a large area of habitat. They need the water to be on the wetlands at the right time and they just need a chance. If they have that chance they'll be OK."
Death knell looms for southern bell frog - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

[Herp News]

AUSTRALIAN STAR (Geelong) 08 October 09 Group jumps in to save frog (Andrew Mathieson)
A Geelong conservation group is saving an endangered species from extinction along the Barwon River.
Southern bell frog numbers have continued to diminish in recent years on Geelong’s biggest fresh waterway.
Volunteers have been conducting restoration works to reinstate five separate wetland habitats on the Barwon and a southern bell frog habitat along a trail beside the river.
Conservation Volunteers Geelong team leader Andrew Quick said he was now confident several measures undertaken in the past 12 months could help restore a larger population of the frog in the city.
Mr Quick said the frog was a victim of a century of development in Geelong.
“The river has been used and abused for 100 years down at the Pakington Street end and we’re trying to restore the frog’s habitat,” he said.
“We’re putting in a lot of grasses again, cutting a lot of the willows and letting the light get back in again.”
Mr Quick said the southern bell frog project included removing invasive weeds from degraded wetlands, planting indigenous wetland vegetation and monitoring “visitor impact”.
The Barwon River’s natural wetlands and native vegetation provided essential habitat for the endangered-list frog, he said.
“It seems to be working,” Mr Quick said of the conservation efforts.
“Even this year we have had a lot more frog species than normal.
“I’m sure I heard my first bell frog (last week). Well, I’m 95 per cent sure.”
Mr Quick said the species, sometimes known as the growling grass frog, had also been spotted in Belmont’s Gheringhap wetlands.
The frog’s survival was “another link in the chain” for the region’s eco-system and particularly important to other bird and wildlife species.
Mr Quick said land degradation, development and flooding in the Barwon Valley had impacted adversely on the frog’s habitat.
Group jumps in to save frog - Star News Group